The French Revolution Offers a Warning About Presidential Immunity

Legal experts across the political spectrum expressed alarm when the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on Donald Trump’s claims to “absolute immunity,” granted immunity to past and future presidents for “official acts,” broadly defined. For voters, this means that the moral character of presidential candidates is now, more than ever, an essential qualification. If they face no legal consequences for criminal overreach, only the ballot box results will constrain them—we hope.

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This is not new, but it is problematic. In the 18th century, as democratic revolutions undergirded by Enlightenment principles allowed newly-empowered citizens to introduce democratic principles, they worried about the character of their rulers and emphasized the importance of public virtue—political leaders who put the public good before personal gain.

However, they soon discovered that relying on the integrity of their leaders, unconstrained by effective laws, was a dangerous thing. Unchecked power allows even leaders of good character to cross legal boundaries in pursuit of outcomes they favor, sometimes with damaging or even devastating results. Convinced that their motives are pure, they see the means as justified.

The French grappled with this issue in the wake of revolution in 1789 as they worked on a new constitution, based on principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Steeped in the language of philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their new polity’s founding document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, touted a government whose sovereignty resided in the nation and whose laws represented the “general will”—that is, the common good. How best to determine the general will was an open question, but most agreed that only men willing to set aside their private interests and rule in the interest of all could effectively implement it.

Read More: Supreme Court Rules Trump and Former Presidents Have Some Immunity for Official Acts

The first iteration of the French constitution, ratified in 1791, was a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, leaving the king, Louis XVI, as the chief executive. However, French citizens and members of the Legislative Assembly suspected he was undercutting the constitution and deemed him not sufficiently committed to the good of the nation. And so, the people of Paris—represented by the Paris Commune—overthrew the monarchy on Aug. 10, 1792 and legislators created the French Republic a month later.

Faced with internal dissent and war with other European nations, the new government, the National Convention, vested broad governing authority in the Committee of Public Safety, which was charged with protecting the new republic against domestic and foreign enemies. Newly created laws conferred more power and less accountability for this work. The Law of 14 Frimaire (Dec. 4, 1793) assigned executive power to the Committee of Public Safety in matters of internal administration and police, which created a dictatorship. The Law of 22 Prairial (June 10, 1794) removed all legal safeguards for those accused of being “enemies of the people.”

Their efforts resulted in the bloody year of revolutionary tribunals and executions known as the Terror, led by men like Maximilien Robespierre. A member of the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre was considered so virtuous that he was nicknamed “The Incorruptible.” Robespierre believed that the new republic must be based on the general will as discerned by righteous leaders like him. Convinced of his own probity and the purity of his motives, Robespierre believed that he represented the will of the virtuous French people; he was closely allied with the working-class people of the Paris Commune.

But this led to a dangerous dynamic because Robespierre and other members of the Committee of Public Safety were empowered to determine how best to govern and purify the republic of those they deemed insufficiently virtuous. Because they were largely unrestrained by laws, they could remove challenges to their authority with chilling efficiency.

This unconstrained power and willingness to use it eventually turned inward. Tensions between Robespierre and his allies and other members of the National Convention boiled over as it became clear that he planned to eliminate them next. This group of representatives came together to arrest Robespierre and his allies on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) and guillotined them the next day.

The experience of the Terror led French legislators to construct a new government in which it would be impossible for a “virtuous” dictatorship backed by the Parisian Commune—or, in their view, a “mob”—to regain control.

However, rather than a system with strong legal institutions and constraints on executive power, the Constitution of Year III relied on the probity of its voters and representatives. It restricted the franchise so that only well-to-do men could vote or hold office, thus making sure that the “mob,” the low-paid workers who had supported Robespierre, did not have a political voice. It also vested significant power in its five executive Directors. Those writing the new constitution determined that men of substance, the wealthy, could be counted on to vote for men of good character who would end the chaos in the country and protect the interests of the propertied classes.

Read More: In Bid for Immunity, Trump Distorts the History of His Second Impeachment

However, the new government proved that elite class status is no guarantee of public virtue. Known as the Directory, it is widely considered one of the most corrupt governments in French history. And with neither effective legal safeguards on the Directory’s authority nor consequences for abusing it, the Directory was willing to act extra-judicially to maintain its power. When the legislative elections of spring 1797 favored resurgent monarchists, three members of the Directory annulled the results and arrested those opposing their actions in what was called the coup of Fructidor (Sept. 1797). They meddled with election results again in April 1798 in the coup of Floréal.

They justified such democratic abuses in the name of protecting the young republic against both reactionary royalists and radical Jacobins. But their behavior demonstrated to a young general Napoleon Bonaparte that neither the law nor respect for the constitution would impede his own overthrow of the government, which took place on Nov. 9, 1799.

Writing for the majority in Trump’s immunity case, Chief Justice John Roberts privileged a bold executive, unhampered by concern for future legal consequences, afforded “maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially” with his duties. Roberts seems to envision a president of high moral character, who will act in the best interests of the country. However, the Supreme Court has set us on a dangerous path, even if future presidents demonstrate the public virtue Trump lacks. As the case of the French Revolution demonstrates, even individuals of integrity with a desire to govern in accordance with the common good can go astray. The ability to exercise and maintain raw power is dangerously seductive, and future American presidents will pay little price for criminal overreach. We now lack the legal tools to do anything about it, which means that our options for holding a corrupt president accountable are bleak.

Christine Adams, a former American Council for Learned Societies and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellow at the Newberry Library, is professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and author of The Creation of the French Royal Mistress with Tracy Adams.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

source https://time.com/6998576/presidential-immunity-character/

FBI Says Donald Trump Was the Subject of an Apparent Assassination Attempt at His Florida Golf Club

Donald Trump was the target of what the FBI said “appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody.

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U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

He had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped and didn’t question why he was pulled over, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

“He never asked, ‘what is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

It was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. On July 13, Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

And it spawned new questions about Secret Service protective operations after the agency’s admitted failures in preventing the assassination attempt this summer.

In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” He wrote: “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He returned to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach where he lives, according to a person familiar with Trump’s movements who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear whether the development would affect his campaign schedule. Trump was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on Monday night on the social media site X. He planned a town hall Tuesday in Flint, Michigan, followed by a rally Wednesday on New York’s Long Island.

An email to Trump campaign staffers obtained by AP said, “This is not a matter that we take lightly. Your safety is always our top priority. We ask that you remain vigilant in your daily comings and goings.”

“As we enter the last 50 days of President Trump’s campaign, we must remember that we will only be able save America from those who seek to destroy it by working together as one team.”

Biden and Harris were briefed on the matter and Harris said in a statement that “violence has no place in America.”

Biden echoed that thought in his own statement and said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service “has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

In the aftermath, Trump checked in with allies, including running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and several Fox News hosts. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday evening he had spent the past few hours with Trump and called him “unstoppable.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity recounted on air his conversation with Trump and the former president’s golf partner, Steve Witkoff.

They told Hannity they had been on the fifth hole and about to go up to putt when they heard a “pop pop, pop pop.” Within seconds, he said Witkoff recounted, Secret Service agents “pounced” on Trump and “covered him” to protect him.

Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not announced any public plans for Trump on Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf.

Trump has had a stepped-up security footprint since the assassination attempt in July. When he is at Trump Tower in New York, parked dump trucks have formed a wall outside the building. At outdoor rallies, he now speaks from behind bulletproof glass.

The Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, but there are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump when he plays. Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to shelter Trump quickly should a threat arise.

The Palm Beach County sheriff said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the president, but because he is not, “security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

“I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter,” Bradshaw said. “But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done, they provided exactly what the protection should have been and their agent did a fantastic job.”

Former presidents and their spouses have Secret Service protection for life, but the security around former presidents varies according to threat levels and exposure, with the toughest measures typically being taken in the immediate aftermath of their leaving office.

Trump’s protective detail has been higher than some other former presidents because of his high visibility and his campaign to seek the White House again.

The man in custody was Ryan Routh, three law enforcement officials told the AP. The officials who identified the suspect spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Hawaii in 2018. In 2020, he made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris.

Routh tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, and spent several months in the country, according to an interview with The New York Times last year.

The FBI was leading the investigation and working to determine any motive. Attorney General Merrick Garland was receiving regular updates. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping investigate.

“The FBI has responded to West Palm Beach Florida and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump,” the bureau said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the state will independently investigate the matter, posting on X that, “The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee.”

News reporters were not with Trump on Sunday. Bucking tradition, Trump’s campaign has not arranged to have a protective pool of reporters travel with him, as is standard for major party nominees and for the president. Harris does not have a protective pool at all times, but does allow reporters to travel with her for public events.

Snyder, the Martin County sheriff, said the suspect was apprehended within minutes of the FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office putting out a “very urgent BOLO” — or “be on the lookout” alert.

Snyder said his deputies “immediately flooded” northbound I-95 and “one of my road patrol units saw the vehicle, matched the tag and we set up on the vehicle,” Snyder said, “We pinched in on the car, got it safely stopped and got the driver in custody.”

source https://time.com/7021408/trump-safe-gunshots-reported/

2 People Die in Ukraine’s Odesa After Moscow and Kyiv Exchange Drone and Missile Attacks

Two people died in a missile attack on the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, local officials said, as Moscow and Kyiv exchanged drone and missile attacks.

The Ukrainian air force said Sunday it shot down 10 of the 14 drones and one of the three missiles Russia launched overnight.

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Oleh Kiper, Odesa’s regional governor, said the two who died in the suburbs of Odesa on Saturday night were a married couple, and that another person was wounded in the attack.

At least 41 people were wounded Sunday afternoon when a Russian aerial bomb struck a multistory residential building in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, adding that the guided bomb hit the 10th floor of the building, with the fire spreading across four stories. Twelve other buildings were also damaged, he said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that it downed 29 Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday over western and southwestern regions, with no damage caused by the falling debris. It also said another Ukrainian drone was shot down Sunday morning over the western Ryazan region.

While Ukraine and Russia regularly launch overnight drone raids on each other’s territory, Ukrainian officials generally don’t confirm or deny attacks within Russia’s borders.

The latest attacks came after Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to use the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deep inside Russia, as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Kyiv officials argue the weapons are vital to weaken Russia’s ability to strike Ukraine and force it to move its strike capabilities further from the border.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media on Sunday to again appeal for a shift in the West’s policy on the use of long-range weapons, noting that Russia had launched “around 30 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 300 strike drones against Ukraine” this week.

“Ukraine needs strong support from our partners to defend lives against Russian terror — air defense, long-range capabilities, support for our warriors. Everything that will help force Russia to end this war,” Zelenskyy posted on X.

source https://time.com/7021399/ukraine-russia-drone-missile-attacks/

The NFL’s Brazil Game Is Still Just the Beginning of Football’s Global Push

In 1894, Charles Miller, the son of a Scottish railway engineer working in São Paulo, returned from boarding school back in England bearing two soccer balls and a rulebook for the varietal of football that was taking Britain by storm. Miller established the Sao Paolo Athletic Club and organized the country’s first football league—a decidedly posh affair in its early years, long before the jogo bonito would become synonymous with Brazil and the inspirational power of a poor man’s game.

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One hundred and thirty years later, the NFL played its first game in Brazil—its first game in South America, for that matter—on Sept. 6, in the sprawling metropolis of São Paolo, and Charles Miller would have been impressed. An enthusiastic sell-out crowd of almost 50,000 watched the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers at the Neo Quimica Arena, a futuristic stadium built for the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup.

“Tickets were harder to come by than tickets for Taylor Swift last fall,” Ubiratan Leal, an ESPN Brazil analyst, told me, “but that’s partly because she played three consecutive nights in São Paolo, and the NFL only played once.” He says younger Brazilians are more connected to American culture, and following the NFL is a clear way to signal one’s “cosmopolitanism.” ESPN and other media outlets in Brazil broadcast weekly NFL games, and the internet and social media make it a lot easier for fans a continent away to feel connected to the action.

Read more: Patrick Mahomes Is Already Thinking About His Next Super Bowl Win

At a time when the United States runs the danger of being perceived as an arrogant, self-obsessed superpower, the nation’s newfound enthusiasm to both share its football with new markets and to adapt the world’s version of the sport provides a powerful counter-narrative. Geopolitical strategists dismiss the power of sport at their own peril; it is arguably the most potent form of what the political scientist Joseph Nye famously termed “soft power.” That’s why regimes including Putin’s Russia, Communist China, and the wealthy monarchies of the Persian Gulf have invested so heavily through the years to associate themselves—much in the same way automakers or beer brands do—with sport.

To wit, Roger Goodell isn’t a U.S. diplomat, but he is doing more than his fair share to make the United States more relatable and likable to people around the world as he pursues commercial growth for his business. I witnessed this dynamic as a kid growing up in Mexico. The traditional anti-American rhetoric that had long been a staple of Mexico’s political discourse lost much of its sting once you had millions of Mexicans cheering on the Dallas Cowboys or Pittsburgh Steelers. Conversely, the fact that NFL franchises are eager to host the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in their stadiums, and that Apple and other U.S. brands invested a fortune to bring Leo Messi to Miami, also conveys to people around the world that 21st Century America wants to play with them.

And it isn’t hard to see why Goodell chose Brazil to help make that statement, with a marquee match-up on the Friday night of the regular season’s opening weekend. A nation of 215 million people, Brazil boasts the world’s eighth largest economy, and a sporting passion and global sporting soft power second to none. The NFL estimates it already has more fans in Brazil than anywhere outside of the United States and Mexico. The league has been far more successful than any other at monetizing fans’ interest in its domestic market, but it is a sign of America’s historic sports isolationism that the U.S. still accounts for more than half of the Super Bowl’s TV audience each year. That is in stark contrast to other icons of American pop culture that have gone truly global—Taylor Swift, Hollywood’s Marvel blockbusters, products like Coca-Cola—and have more fans and consumers outside the United States than within. The NFL wants to follow in their footsteps.

A few years ago, Goodell convinced NFL club owners to add a 17th regular season game, to free them up for more international duty without asking them to sacrifice precious home games. In addition to São Paolo, the NFL will play three games in London this season, and one in Munich. Next year it will debut in another one of the other football’s most imposing citadels: Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. The league wants to ramp up to at least eight international games a season.

As it often does in Super Bowl cities, the NFL hosted a series of community activities in São Paolo, and an interactive “NFL Experience” at Parque Villa-Lobos, where fans could admire the Vince Lombardi trophy, try their luck at field goals, long snaps, precise throws, play some flag football, and watch some of the other games throughout the weekend. Fans milling about wore jerseys of just about every NFL franchise.

Victor Romanelli, a Steelers-loving English teacher standing in line for his close-up with the Lombardi trophy, told me he first connected with the Pittsburgh team as a Wiz Khalifa fan who wondered what the rapper’s “Black and Yellow” song was about. That’s all it took.

The NFL isn’t shy about proclaiming that its “product” is the most riveting sport on TV, and that with enough exposure to it, people anywhere, even in lands long identified with the other football, will tune in. But what is surprising about the NFL’s current outreach in Brazil, and elsewhere, is that it isn’t just peddling its gladiatorial spectacle.

The league is also pushing 5-on-5 flag football. It was the central attraction at the NFL Experience, and the Eagles hosted their own afternoon community event two days before the game, inviting kids from across the country to do flag drills wearing Eagles t-shirts, encouraged by the team’s cheerleaders and the team’s “Fly, Eagles Fly” fight song blaring over the loudspeakers. Pierre Trochet, the president of the International Federation of American Football, which is (naturally) based in France and organizes both tackle and flag football globally, was there. Flag will be featured at the Los Angeles Olympics for the first time, and Trochet is confident it will retain that status beyond 2028.

“We have some 20 million people playing flag football in 100 countries,” he said. “In Mexico alone, 100,000 kids pick up the game each year.”

Flag football helps the sport overcome three obstacles to rapid global expansion. There aren’t the same health concerns at play; the game is gender-inclusive; and the equipment cost barrier is drastically lowered.

Read more: The Man Who Changed Field Goals Forever

At a forum I participated in at São Paolo’s Soccer Museum in three days before the game, Cris Kajiwara, the president of the Brazilian Confederation of American Football, said flag football is being taken up across Brazil, even in its most remote regions. She had recently returned from the IFAF’s 32-nation Flag Football World Championship in Finland and is bullish on the sport’s growth, especially now that it is an Olympic sport and thus more likely to get public support in many countries. And because it is a new sport without a long history of being a male preserve, girls feel especially welcome, and on equal footing.

The two football worlds are converging in other ways. The Green Bay Packers are the most throwback of NFL franchises. You could fit 213 Green Bays into metro Sao Paolo. And yet, its historic Lambeau Field has hosted a Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich friendly two summers ago. In a conversation recorded for the Great Game Lab at Arizona State University this summer, Mark Murphy, the Packers CEO, recalled that sold-out match as an extraordinary scene. What most surprised him was how excited his own players were, and how knowledgeable some of them were about European soccer.

As for the Packer fans who traveled to São Paolo, they were stunned to find so many impassioned Packer fans in Brazil, who seemed to get what makes their club so distinctive. David Wallschleager, who started following the Packers on the radio and graduated from high school one year before the iconic 1967 “ice bowl” championship game, told me he wouldn’t have missed this game for anything. He still remembers when people complained about $3 ticket prices but is now onboard for Roger Goodell’s global expansion: “This was good for this city, this country, and our team. I can’t wait to see where we go next.”

And who knows. The soccer team that regularly plays in the stadium that hosted the NFL’s São Paolo game was born in 1910 and named after a visiting English club, the Corinthians. Maybe someday another sport will try to make inroads in Brazil playing on a field normally played by the São Paolo Packers, who will be seen as a hyper-local institution playing an inherently Brazilian game.

source https://time.com/7021106/nfl-brazil-global-expansion/

Polaris Dawn Returns to Earth After Historic Spacewalk

A billionaire spacewalker returned to Earth with his crew on Sunday, ending a five-day trip that lifted them higher than anyone has traveled since NASA’s moonwalkers.

SpaceX’s capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in the predawn darkness, carrying tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, two SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot.

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They pulled off the first private spacewalk while orbiting nearly 460 miles (740 kilometers) above Earth, higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. Their spacecraft hit a peak altitude of 875 miles (1,408 kilometers) following Tuesday’s liftoff.

Isaacman became only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union scored the first in 1965, and SpaceX’s Sarah Gillis the 265th. Until now, all spacewalks were done by professional astronauts.

“We are mission complete,” Isaacman radioed as the capsule bobbed in the water, awaiting the recovery team. Within an hour, all four were out of their spacecraft, pumping their fists with joy as they emerged onto the ship’s deck.

It was the first time SpaceX aimed for a splashdown near the Dry Tortugas, a cluster of islands 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Key West. To celebrate the new location, SpaceX employees brought a big, green turtle balloon to Mission Control at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The company usually targets closer to the Florida coast, but two weeks of poor weather forecasts prompted SpaceX to look elsewhere.

During Thursday’s commercial spacewalk, the Dragon capsule’s hatch was open barely a half-hour. Isaacman emerged only up to his waist to briefly test SpaceX’s brand new spacesuit followed by Gillis, who was knee high as she flexed her arms and legs for several minutes. Gillis, a classically trained violinist, also held a performance in orbit earlier in the week.

The spacewalk lasted less than two hours, considerably shorter than those at the International Space Station. Most of that time was needed to depressurize the entire capsule and then restore the cabin air. Even SpaceX’s Anna Menon and Scott “Kidd” Poteet, who remained strapped in, wore spacesuits.

SpaceX considers the brief exercise a starting point to test spacesuit technology for future, longer missions to Mars.

This was Isaacman’s second chartered flight with SpaceX, with two more still ahead under his personally financed space exploration program named Polaris after the North Star. He paid an undisclosed sum for his first spaceflight in 2021, taking along contest winners and a pediatric cancer survivor while raising more than $250 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

For the just completed so-called Polaris Dawn mission, the founder and CEO of the Shift4 credit card-processing company shared the cost with SpaceX. Isaacman won’t divulge how much he spent.

source https://time.com/7021393/polaris-dawn-space-x-crew-lands-earth/

A Look at Harvey Weinstein’s Health and Legal Issues as He Faces More Criminal Charges

NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein faces mounting legal and health troubles some seven years after scores of women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him, helping launch the global #MeToo movement.

On Thursday, he was indicted on additional sex crimes charges in New York ahead of a retrial this fall. The grand jury decision remains sealed until he is formally arraigned in court.

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Weinstein has maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

Meanwhile, the 72-year-old remains hospitalized following emergency heart surgery — just the latest in an assortment of medical ailments that have cropped up while in custody.

Here’s a recap of where things stand:

New York retrial

In April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges, ruling that the trial judge had unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case.

A new trial was ordered and the tentative start date is Nov. 12.

One of the two accusers in that case has said she is prepared to testify against Weinstein again, but it remains to be seen if the other accuser will also take the stand once more.

Weinstein had been sentenced to 23 years in prison for that conviction.

New criminal charges

Earlier this month, prosecutors disclosed that a Manhattan grand jury had reviewed evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein.

They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.

It is unclear when Weinstein will be formally charged on those allegations, given his current health condition. The next court hearing ahead of the retrial is slated for Sept. 18.

It is also unclear how the additional allegations will factor in the retrial. Prosecutors want to include the new charges in the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers oppose that, saying it should be a separate case.

California conviction appealed

In 2022, Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count after a one-month trial in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

During the trial, a woman testified that Weinstein appeared uninvited at her hotel room during the LA Italia Film Festival in 2013 and that Weinstein became sexually aggressive after she let him in.

Weinstein’s lawyers appealed the conviction in June, arguing the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence that the Italian model and actor had a sexual relationship with the film festival director at the time of the alleged attack.

UK charges dropped

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Sept. 5 that it had decided to drop two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’

In 2022, the agency authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file the charges against Weinstein over an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

Pending civil cases

Weinstein also faces several lawsuits brought by women accusing him of sexual misconduct.

Among the latest is one from actor Julia Ormond, who starred opposite Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall” and Harrison Ford in “Sabrina.” She filed the lawsuit last year in New York accusing Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 1995 and then hindering her career.

The majority of lawsuits against Weinstein were brought to a close through a 2021 settlement as part of the bankruptcy of his former film company, The Weinstein Co. The agreement included a victims’ fund of about $17 million for some 40 women who sued him.

Health problems

Weinstein’s lawyers have regularly raised concerns about his worsening health since being taken into custody following his 2020 conviction.

During his appearances in Manhattan court, he’s regularly transported in a wheelchair and his lawyers say he suffers from macular degeneration and diabetes that’s worsened due to the poor jailhouse diet.

Weinstein’s pericardiocentesis surgery last week was to drain fluid around his heart. His lawyers say his medical regimen causes him to retain water and that he must be constantly monitored to ensure the fluid buildup isn’t deadly.

A judge has granted his request to remain at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

source https://time.com/7021371/harvey-weinstein-health-criminal-civil-cases/

Prince Harry’s 40th Birthday Marks the Royal Scamp Moving to Middle Age

(LONDON) — Prince Harry was always something different.

From the moment he first appeared in public, snuggled in Princess Diana’s arms outside the London hospital where he was born in 1984, Harry was the ginger-haired scamp who stuck his tongue out at photographers. He grew to be a boisterous adolescent who was roundly criticized for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party, and then a young man who gave up the trappings of royal life and moved to Southern California with his American wife.

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Through it all, there was a sense that Harry was rebelling against an accident of birth that made him, in the harsh calculus of the House of Windsor, just “the spare.” As the second son of the man who is now King Charles III, he was raised as a prince but wouldn’t inherit the throne unless brother William came to harm.

Now the angry young man is turning 40, the halfway point in many lives, providing a chance to either dwell on the past or look forward to what might still be achieved.

For the past four years, Harry has focused mainly on the past, making millions of dollars by airing his grievances in a wildly successful memoir and a Netflix docu-series. But he faces the likelihood that the royal aura so critical to his image may be fading, said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.”

“He is at a sort of crossroads,’’ Smith told The Associated Press. “And he appears to be struggling with how he wants to proceed.’’

How did we get here?

It wasn’t always this way.

Six years ago, Harry and his wife were among the most popular royals, a glamorous young couple who reflected the multicultural face of modern Britain and were expected to help revitalize the monarchy.

Their wedding on May 19, 2018, united a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II with the former Meghan Markle, a biracial American actress who had starred for seven years in the U.S. television drama “Suits.” George Clooney, Serena Williams and Elton John attended their wedding at Windsor Castle, after which the couple were formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

But the optimism quickly faded amid allegations that Britain’s tabloid media and even members of the royal household treated Meghan unfairly because of racism.

By January of 2020, the pressures of life in the gilded cage had become too much, and the couple announced they were giving up royal duties and moving to America, where they hoped to become “financially independent.” They signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify as they settled into the wealthy enclave of Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California.

Since then, Harry has missed few opportunities to bare his soul, most famously in his memoir, aptly titled “Spare.”

Read More: These Are the Most Shocking Revelations in Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Spare’

In the ghostwritten book, Harry recounted his grief at the death of Princess Diana, a fight with Prince William and his unease with life in the royal shadow of his elder brother. From accounts of cocaine use and losing his virginity to raw family rifts, the book was rife with damning allegations about the royal family.

Among the most toxic was Harry’s description of how some family members leaked unflattering information about other royals in exchange for positive coverage of themselves. The prince singled out his father’s second wife, Queen Camilla, accusing her of feeding private conversations to the media as she sought to rehabilitate an image tarnished by her role in the breakup of Charles’ marriage to Diana.

The allegations were so venomous that there is little chance of a return to public duty, Smith said.

“He criticized the royal family in such a powerful and damaging way. You can’t un-say those things,’’ she said. “And you can’t unsee things like Meghan in that Netflix series doing a mock curtsey. It’s such a demeaning gesture to the queen.’’

Harry, who agreed not to use the honorific HRH, or “his royal highness,” after he stepped away from front-line royal duties, is now fifth in line to the British throne, behind his brother and William’s three children.

While he grew up in a palace and is said to be in line to inherit millions of pounds (dollars) on his 40th birthday from a trust set up by his great-grandmother, applied developmental psychologist Deborah Heiser thinks that, in many ways, Harry is just like the rest of us.

Like anyone turning 40, he is likely to have learned a few lessons and has a good idea of who his real friends are, and that will help him chart the next phase of his life, said Heiser, who writes a blog called “The Right Side of 40” for Psychology Today.

“He has had a very public display of what a lot of people have gone through,’’ Heiser said. “I mean, most people are not princes, but … they have all kinds of issues within their families. He’s not alone. That’s why he’s so relatable.’’

Harry’s next chapter

Of course, Harry’s story isn’t just about the drama within the House of Windsor.

If he wants to write a new chapter, Harry can build on his 10 years of service in the British Army. Before retiring as a captain in 2015, the prince earned his wings as a helicopter pilot, served two tours in Afghanistan and shed the hard-partying reputation of his youth.

Harry also won accolades for establishing the Invictus Games in 2014, a Paralympic-style competition to inspire and aid in the rehabilitation of sick and wounded servicemembers and veterans.

Harry and Meghan made headlines this year with their two international trips to promote mental health and internet safety. While some in British media criticized them for accepting royal treatment in Nigeria and Colombia, the couple said they visited at the invitation of local officials.

Will Charles see the grandkids?

Prospects of reconciliation are unclear, though Harry did race home to see his father after Charles’ cancer diagnosis. And in what may be seen as a tentative olive branch, the paperback edition of “Spare” slated for October has no additions — so nothing new to stir the pot.

But plainly at this point, Harry is thinking about his family in California. He told the BBC about the importance of his two young children, Archie and Lilibet.

“Being a dad is one of life’s greatest joys and has only made me more driven and more committed to making this world a better place,” the prince said in a statement released by his spokesperson.

source https://time.com/7021354/prince-harry-40-birthday/